Ruhi Ayangil
Prof. Ruhi Ayangil has spent a long career in the performance, transmission, and academic study of Turkish music. He began his studies at the Istanbul Faculty of Law, and pursued his music training under İhsan Balkır at the Istanbul Municipal Conservatory, continuing with harmony and orchestration under Cemal Reşit Rey.
From 1973, for roughly eight years, he conducted the Boğaziçi University Turkish Music Chorus. His decision to organize choir members by voice type, rather than by height, is recognized as a first in the history of Turkish music. During this period the chorus toured Holland (1974), the USSR (1975), and Poland (1976), and Ayangil taught Comparative Turkish Music there from 1975 to 1977.
As a kanun soloist, he performed the "Concerto for Kanun", composed by H. Ferid Alnar, 31 times with various symphonic orchestras, and recorded the work with the Oradea Philharmonic Orchestra in Romania. His international recitals as a kanun soloist have taken him to England, Greece, Italy, Lebanon, Egypt, Germany, the United States, Belgium, Holland, Poland, and the former USSR.
In 1983 he founded the Ayangil Turkish Music Orchestra and Chorus (ATMOC); the ensemble's founding story and institutional identity are told in full on the ATMOC page.
His academic career ran from 1997 to 2011, beginning as founding faculty at Yıldız Technical University (YTÜ) Faculty of Art and Design; he served as Department Chair of the STF Müzik ve Sahne Sanatları Bölümü and as Founding Director of the YTÜ Vedat Kosal Music Application and Research Center, and retired as Dean of YTÜ-STF.
In 2010, Ayangil founded the Ayangil Atölyesi – İfâde Dînî Mûsikî Meşk Topluluğu, an ensemble devoted to the study and performance of devotional music. On 19 June 2011, his kanun-and-ud duo with Ara Dinkjian, "Yüz Yüze / Face to Face," opened the International Istanbul Festival at the Galata Mevlevihanesi. On 31 May 2012, he performed with the ensemble in the "İfâde-i Merâm Concerts II" programme at Mardin Artuklu University and gave a lecture on seventeenth-century Turkish music and Buhûrîzâde Mustafa Itrî's place in music history. On 7 June 2012, he appeared with the Ayangil Ensemble in the opening concert of the "Tage Alter Musik" festival in Bamberg, Germany.
He currently holds four positions: faculty member in the İTÜ Graduate Program; Scientific Advisory Board member at Kaiser Wilhelm University CMO (Münster); founding faculty at Adakademi Foundation University; and expert trainer for the Mim Sanat Association's S.E.S Project.
He has published academic research on Turkish music acoustics and performance practice. In 1999 he was honored with the "Cultural Achievement Prize of Turkey (JAYCEES-TYOP, 1999)".